


Let's Make a Great Big Mistake

by PoorWendy



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-29 09:02:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorWendy/pseuds/PoorWendy
Summary: He doesn’t rightly care whatgüeromeans, not really. He just likes the way Vasquez says it, and he likes his sideways, just-quick-enough mouth and the tilt of his hips. Faraday doesn’t know what to do with the want anymore.





	Let's Make a Great Big Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you open a google doc three days after you've watched a new movie while you're drunk for a laugh and call it "Let's Make a Great Big Mistake" because in what world do you need ANOTHER WIP? And yet, here we are, five months later. Gigantic and whole-hearted THANK YOU to [deinvati](http://archiveofourown.org/users/deinvati) who I dragged to cowboy hell with me and who screamed with me about this fic for the past two months. I doubt it I ever would have finished it without her cheering and betaing!
> 
> There will, eventually, be a sequel to this story that will initiate an Everybody Lives canon divergence. Couldn't promise you a when, but it'll come!

“What’s _güero_ mean, anyway?” Faraday asks him, in the husk of a church at the edge of Rose Creek. “Handsome? Debonair?”

Vasquez laughs, his eyes crinkling, the sound like music. “Something like that,” he answers, and Faraday wants to reach out and touch him. He’s grateful for the other folks around, for the other tasks at hand. Because he’s been wanting a lot, lately. An awful lot.

He doesn’t know what to do with the want. He’s had chances, over the years, across the hundreds of miles, in saloons and around campfires and in so many dusty alleyways. He’s had chances to get to know other men. But the want was never so… so _big,_ so tough to ignore. Maybe it’s that all Gavin’s girls had cleared out the morning after they’d arrived. Maybe it’s the lingering promise of a blaze of glory.

Or maybe it’s just Vasquez and his south-of-the-border swagger and his sideways, just-quick-enough mouth.

He’s not sure what to do with the want. So he laughs. They both laugh. It’s strange to laugh together. But it’s better than getting each other’s backs up, Faraday’s not too stupid to admit it. So, sure. He’ll laugh with him. They gotta fight together, after all. And they did alright doing that on their first day in town, picking off Bart’s men one at a time, finding themselves back-to-back in the middle of the street, however briefly.

If there’d been time, then, for anything other than picking off wicked men, maybe Faraday’d have noticed the heat, the hot _draw_ of Vasquez’s body. But there wasn’t time. There were only men to kill, bullets to dodge—and an unspoken, unnegotiated, inherent trust.

But later, with a little more whiskey in him and having come down enough from the high of the shoot-out, then there'd been time. Time, and a brothel, and enough coin left in his pocket to afford an hour or two with a pretty little thing called Hannah. And even as he sank himself inside her, he’d found himself still caught up with Vasquez and his claim of taking out six men, his dark eyes. He’d tried so hard to push it out of his mind, but the closer he came to finishing, the louder he seemed to hear Vasquez’s voice echoing in his head. _Say when, güero._

Sam’s busy glaring out the window—now more just a plain hole in the wall—of the church, and Faraday laughs right back at Vasquez, shakes his head. “Somethin’ like that,” he echoes. He doesn’t rightly care what _güero_ means, not really. He just likes the way Vasquez says it. Maybe it’s even better not to know. He can supply whatever meaning behind it he pleases. Nice, light, sweet translations that fit with Vasquez’s fond tone.

And as the week goes on, that tone only grows a little fonder. They laugh a little more each day. They drink a little more each evening. The way Vasquez eats like a fucking animal gets a little less repulsive. And Faraday tries a little less each night not to think of him as he snakes a hand down beneath his sheets and wraps it around his own cock.

Tonight, they’re laughing and drinking an awful lot. And Faraday, drunk as he is, already knows he won’t be trying at all later not to think of Vasquez. Not a chance. Because Vasquez is _alight_ and laughing at Faraday’s jokes and making so many of his own. He’s drunk and slurring and sitting close by, so close that Faraday’s gotta push up from the table, and make a whole big show of introducing his guns to everyone.

And that’s easy enough, because Faraday’s a talker, a showman. Horne doesn’t much care for the way he behaves, and Goodnight and Billy seem just to take him in stride, but Vasquez is still sitting and laughing and playing along. And even if the two of them, Faraday and Vasquez, are decidedly the drunkest among them, they’re also the most reluctant to call it a night.

“Could use a smoke, I could,” Faraday mutters when Horne’s already retired and Goodnight and Billy are talking low and tiredly to one another as they gather themselves to head back toward their room.

 _“Estaba pensando lo mismo,”_ Vasquez supplies, and Faraday doesn’t ask him to translate, because he sees Vasquez digging into his vest for a smoke of his own.

Faraday stands up from his seat at the table. “Stuffy in here,” he says. “Think I’ll head outside,” he adds, nods toward the door. He doesn’t wait for any response, but his heartbeat speeds up a little as he processes the sounds of Vasquez getting up and following him.

The night air feels sweet against his flushed forehead as soon as he exits the saloon. Faraday stumbles over to the wall, leans against it, pulls a smoke out of his vest, then a box of matches. He tries and fails three times to strike one before the door swings open again and Vasquez saunters over, laughing at him.

“Shut up,” Faraday says too lightly, grinning too wide.

“I didn’t say anything,” Vasquez says in his defense, and strikes a match of his own, guards the flame with his other hand, holds it out to Faraday. Faraday keeps grinning, cigarillo between his teeth, as he leans forward, roasts the tip, puffs until it’s glowing.

“Gra-see-yas, home-bray,” he offers, lungs tight with smoke.

Vasquez laughs at him. _“No hay problema,”_ he replies, lighting his own. Faraday blows smoke out into the night while he watches the way Vasquez’s match lights up his face, handsome features glowing pleasantly. He watches too closely, watches for too long, as Vasquez shakes the match out, drops it, inhales deeply and lets smoke pour out of his mouth. “Alright, _güero?”_ he finally asks, taking notice of Faraday’s gaze. He probably was aware of it all along.

Faraday smirks, nods. “Yessir,” he answers. “‘M just fine. Not an entirely unpleasant evening,” he says, looking around the quiet street, and then nodding toward the saloon.

“Very pleasant,” Vasquez answers. “Lots to drink. Lots to eat,” he allows. “Good company,” he adds, a sincerity in his eyes that makes Faraday have to look away, pick at his fingernails, drag on his cigarillo.

“Yeah,” he agrees, letting out a mouthful of smoke with the word. “Yeah, good company.”

It’s quiet for a while, then. They just smoke and stand and stare out at the empty street. Faraday thinks about the time they spent together today, when the sun was still up and strong as hell and they were stringing up haphazard explosives, and Vasquez even laughed, eventually, after Faraday threw his smoke at him. Faraday smiles at the thought now.

“Something funny, _güero?”_ Vasquez asks, and Faraday’s too flattered at the thought of Vasquez watching him so closely in the dark.

Faraday rolls his eyes. _“Güero,”_ he parrots. “Always _güero_ with you, ain’t it?”

“I think you like it,” Vasquez offers lightly.

Faraday just rolls his eyes again. “Eh, suppose I don’t mind it much.”

Vasquez laughs a little, nods. There’s a beat of quiet before he speaks again. “It doesn’t mean handsome,” Vasquez finally answers him in earnest. “Or—what was it you said? Debonair.”

Faraday cracks a little smile. “Yeah, I kinda figured,” he replies.

Vasquez takes a half-step toward him. “You think I would just call you that? Out there, in front of everyone?”

Faraday swallows. “No,” he answers, ignores the way it kind of hurts to have to admit it.

Vasquez gets closer still. “No,” he says back to him. _“Pero, tú esperas.”_ There’s a look in his eye that’s dark, that’s _wicked,_ something Faraday can see even out here, away from the lamplight of the saloon. _“¿Sí?”_

“I—” Faraday tries to reply, even if he doesn’t quite know what the question is.

Vasquez doesn’t give him the time. He doesn’t give him the space, either, as he closes in on him, backs him against the wall. _“Esperas porque tú lo quieres.”_

“What are—” Faraday tries to butt in again. Vasquez won’t let him.

“You were hoping,” he says, apparently translating. “Because you want it. Want _this.”_ Faraday can only stare, can only breathe. “Don’t you?”

Faraday keeps breathing.

 _"Dime,”_ Vasquez says, voice thick, pushing, and Faraday’s going to give it up soon enough, with that glint in Vasquez’s eye and the low purr of his voice and the way Faraday can feel the heat of his body. Of course he’s been hoping. And he’s about to show his hand. _"_ _Dime que lo quieres.”_

Damn him, but Faraday has it in him to fight. Even if his cards’ll be on the table, he can hold out a little longer. “You know I don’t understand a damn word you’re sayin’,” he points out.

Vasquez nods. “I know that you like it,” he says simply. “Tell me.”

Faraday swallows again “Yeah,” he answers, making himself sound smug, mustering up his charm. “Yeah, I want you.”

Vasquez grins, and it’s infuriating and beautiful. He reaches down and brushes the inside of Faraday’s thigh with his knuckles. “What are you going to do about it, _guapo?”_

Faraday draws in a long breath, closes his eyes at the feeling of Vasquez’s touch. “What’s _guapo?”_ he asks absently.

He feels more than hears Vasquez huff out a little laugh. “That _is_ handsome,” he answers, close, _too_ close to Faraday’s lips.

Faraday finds the strength to quip, “Knew you thought so,” and presses forward, touches his lips to Vasquez’s, gently, tentatively. But only at first. A few moments later something ignites between them, and Faraday pushes forward, not just with his lips but with his whole body, trapping Vasquez’s hand between them. His cock jerks at the feel of Vasquez’s wrist pressed against it, stiffens at the touch.

He pulls his lips away, wanting to say something, but coming up short, a rarity for him. He hopes Vasquez will supply something, wants to hear his accented drawl.

Vasquez doesn’t disappoint. “What now?” he asks.

“Sure as shit don’t wanna stop,” Faraday answers, still close enough to Vasquez that they’re sharing the same breath. Vasquez laughs softly. “And can’t well go at you out here,” Faraday says, though he’s drunk enough he thinks he just might anyway, if they don’t get moving to someplace else soon. He leans in a little bit, lets himself breathe in the smell of sweat and whiskey and dirt hanging off Vasquez’s neck. “Church’s empty.”

Vasquez snorts, lowers his head. _“Por supuesto,”_ he breathes out against Faraday’s ear, voice steeped in laughter. “Brothel is empty as well, but of course you would think of the church first, _güero.”_

Faraday laughs with him, shivers at the same time, thinking of what it could be like, finding himself with Vasquez in the brothel, getting his hands on what he’d imagined inside those very walls. Then again, his mind hadn’t been far off in the church either, where they’d been laughing and chiding one another. “Take your pick, then,” he says quietly, ready to heed any suggestion Vasquez might supply, the feel of the heat between their bodies growing more deliciously unbearable by the moment.

Faraday leans in close, wanting an answer, wanting to hear more, _feel_ more of Vasquez’s words spoken against him, in whichever language he prefers. But Vasquez just backs up, nods vaguely, and turns on his heel to cross the street, offering no outright invitation for Faraday to follow, save a little glimmer in his dark eyes, a smirk still playing on his lips.

Faraday follows, wills his body to be slower, cooler than it feels. He watches as Vasquez saunters across the street, uses the cover of night and the recent revelation of Vasquez’s intentions to, for once, plainly admire his lean frame, the tilt of his hips.

The street’s deserted, windows all dark. It’s late. Christ, it’s probably much too late, considering tomorrow could well be the last of so many early days filled with sweaty, tiresome work. Vasquez is heading for the church, Faraday realizes, and it makes his heart race, makes his skin flush hot in the cool night air. He quickens his pace, even as he wishes he wouldn’t, even as it makes him feel so desperate. But he is—he’s desperate to close the distance between them, so that by the time Vasquez is walking into the burnt-up, hollowed out building, Faraday’s got his hand on the small of his back, damn-near pushing him through the door.

“Wouldn’t have thought,” Faraday says, vaguely, a little too quietly, but Vasquez still hears.

“Thought what?” he asks, not turning, walking deeper still into the church. Faraday’s close behind him, hand still on his back, greedy, not inclined to stop touching Vasquez now that he’s got permission. They move up the aisle, between the rows of charred pews, slats of moonlight breaking up the cold, dusty darkness.

“That you’d be keen to, y’know,” he mutters clumsily, and Vasquez slows his steps a little as they pass they front row, stand more or less before what used to be the altar. “Mess around in a church.”

Vasquez laughs softly, stops walking. Faraday slides his hand around to his hip. “Ah,” Vasquez says. “You figured I would pick the brothel?”

He pulls at Vasquez’s hip, and Vasquez doesn’t fight him, just turns around to face him. “Suppose I did,” Faraday answers, and takes a step forward to close the distance between them, to feel the heat of his body again.

Vasquez shakes his head, leans in so that Faraday can feel his breath again. “No, _güero,”_ he says, soft and too sincere. “Didn’t want you there,” he says, brushes his lips against Faraday’s stubbled cheek. It makes Faraday’s eyes slip shut. “Not where somebody else had you.”

Faraday winces at that, that whisper that seems half confession, half accusation. He thinks he might fess up, tell Vasquez that he’d thought of him when he’d finished. He would, but Vasquez is suddenly turning him, kissing him, and Faraday barely keeps his footing as Vasquez backs him up and puts him against the wall.

The feeling punches a moan right out of him, one he’s glad he didn’t give up out in front of the saloon. Vasquez grins against his mouth, reaches down to cup between Faraday’s legs. Faraday rolls his hips forward into the touch, cock hard and straining against his pants. He lets his head fall back against the wall, makes a sound far too high and undignified. Vasquez hums, pleased, says, “You’re excited.”

Faraday smirks. “No shit,” he says, lowers his head again to meet Vasquez’s eyes. The standing around and talking is making him restless, giving him too much time to think, to question himself. To give himself away. But he can bluff a losing hand. Always could. So when Vasquez runs the heel of his hand down the hard length of him through his pants, Faraday reaches behind his neck, grips it too tightly, says, “Quit teasin’, damn it,” and leans forward to bite at Vasquez’s lip.

Vasquez hisses, but Faraday can feel him grin before he bites back, kissing meanly as he pulls carelessly at Faraday’s belt buckle. There’s no more time for Faraday to think or second-guess before Vasquez is pulling his cock out, and he presses his mouth hard against Vasquez’s rather than let it make the helpless sort of sound that might betray him.

Vasquez’s hand, his _grip,_ is rough, rougher than any touch his cock’s ever felt, save for his own. If Faraday’s honest with himself, he might even admit that Vasquez’s hands are _more_ worn than his. Faraday’s done his share of riding and shooting and may have stumbled, on more than one occasion, accidentally, into an honest day’s hard work. But Vasquez’s time on the run and whatever he must have been up to before that have left his hands more weathered than Faraday’s drinking and cards have left his own.

He’s stroking Faraday with one hand, pulling his pants farther down with the other, and murmuring indistinguishable, hot, slurred Spanish words against Faraday’s jaw, down his neck until Faraday’s handkerchief is in his way. Then, he’s abandoning those efforts to run his hands up Faraday’s chest and around his neck, tugging at the knot behind it. _“Maldito,”_ he grumbles, pulling too hard. “Take this off,” he says, and Faraday thinks he might surprise himself even more than he surprises Vasquez when he starts laughing. Vasquez bites at his jaw but Faraday just lets his head fall back and laughs a little more.

“Here you had me thinkin’ you were so good with your hands,” Faraday chuckles, suddenly feeling the nervous pressure in his chest lessen enough to start their push-and-pull again.

Vasquez swears against Faraday’s skin. “Good with my hands,” he says, and Faraday can hear his grin. Can _feel_ it. “Good with my mouth too,” he adds, low, and Faraday’s back arches involuntarily. “Get rid of this,” Vasquez breathes, tugging at the handkerchief again, and licks a stripe above it, “and I’ll show you.”

All at once, Vasquez’s hand is wrapped around his cock again, and Faraday barely thinks as he rushes to comply, making quick work of the knot and dropping his handkerchief on the dirty, sooty floor beside them. “Pony up, _muchacho,”_ Faraday says, making a pretty good effort to sound cocksure, if he says so himself. Vasquez growls against him, bites damn-near too hard at the newly-exposed skin just above Faraday’s collar, sucking and pulling a sound out of Faraday that is precisely the kind he’d prefer to bury.

Vasquez rubs his thumb under the head of his cock, and Faraday bites down on his own lip, manages to stifle any further damning sounds for the time being. His hands slide impatiently, like they’ve got a mind of their own, over Vasquez’s shoulders, strong and warm through his shirt. Faraday’s all wrapped up in the feel of him, hands wanting to shadow and trace the slow and effortless rhythm of his every move. Some fire too deep in his belly wants to tear through Vasquez’s clothes and put his hands against his skin, but something else in him’s still damnably afraid to make himself do it, so he helps himself to as much of Vasquez as he can, now, through the cotton of his shirt. He runs his hands down Vasquez’s back, over the rough-spun fabric of his vest, grips too hard at his waist, takes his fill of the body offered to him just as readily and intemperately as if he’d been offered a bottle of whiskey.

Which is why, when Vasquez’s hard, lean torso, his back, his hips are suddenly out of reach, Faraday’s first instinct is to complain about it. “Back here,” he snaps, albeit a little breathlessly, before he has the sense to nod down and account for the loss of contact properly.

Vasquez is kneeling before him, glaring at him, eyes full of a predatory sort of want that’s plain to make out through the impatient look he’s angling up at Faraday. _“¿De verdad?”_ he asks in a tone that makes Faraday even more confused and embarrassed than usual when Vasquez speaks Spanish.

Faraday hopes Vasquez doesn’t notice his face redden in the darkness of the church. He runs one hand through his own hair, the other reaching tentatively down toward Vasquez’s shoulder. “I—” he begins clumsily, the familiar instinct to defend himself and the all-too-foreign urge to apologize at war inside him. Whatever gives him away—whether it’s his twice-damned fair complexion, or his uncertain words, or the shudder of his hips as he tries so hard not to push his cock forward into Vasquez’s grip—Vasquez seems to take mercy. He rolls his eyes and leans forward, licking resolutely across the head of Faraday’s leaking cock. “Shit,” Faraday hisses.

 _“Te lo dije,”_ Vasquez mutters, voice low and smug, breath hot. Faraday doesn’t bother questioning him, just lets his hips roll forward like they want to as Vasquez gives him a few more strokes and peers up again, irritation gone from his face, one eyebrow raised in utter self-satisfaction. _“Bueno,”_ he says, and it’s fond and condescending and, son of a bitch, Vasquez knows just what he’s doing, has Faraday wrapped right around his finger. _“Tan bueno, güero.”_

 _Güero._ The word still makes him clench his jaw, the way Vasquez keeps its meaning buried. The way he keeps using it even now, even when he could be calling him handsome. Or even _Faraday._ And, damn it, Faraday moans, now, thinking how good that would sound falling out of Vasquez’s mouth. He only barely lets himself imagine Vasquez saying his given name. _Joshua._ The very idea does something nearly unbearable to his heart, and he tries to push it from his mind.

It turns out to be easy, because then Vasquez’s mouth is wrapped around him, and Faraday’s not capable of imagining it doing anything else. What he’s far more concerned with now is what his own damnable mouth’ll say, watching this. _Feeling_ it, his cock sliding in and out of Vasquez’s mouth, warm and wet and slow.

His hands, never content with staying idle, begin to wander again. As Vasquez swallows him deeper, Faraday slides his hands into his thick, dark hair, and though he doesn’t quite intend to, he holds him still, interrupting his languid rhythm so that that head of his cock can stay buried at the back of his throat.

Vasquez sighs, or groans—some sinful grumble that Faraday counts himself damn lucky to have heard, a sound he’d like to keep all to himself, play over and over inside his head during as many sleepless nights as fate sees fit to grant him. (He’s struck with a sudden, jarring pang to think that he may well die so soon after hearing it.)

And then Vasquez sighs again, and grips at Faraday’s hips, pulling him back to reality, and Faraday lets go of his head. Vasquez pulls off, gasping, though he’s not as furious as Faraday’d have thought he’d be. If this had happened a few days sooner, Faraday would bet Vasquez would’ve bitten his cock off.

But Vasquez doesn’t bite. He just strokes him some more, peers up at him with dark, wet eyes. Faraday’s almost inclined to apologize, but for all he’s given up tonight, he can’t quite give him that. Vasquez licks his lips, leans forward like he aims to take Faraday back into his mouth, but stops short, meets Faraday’s eye again, asks, “You going to do that again?”

Faraday isn’t sure what answer he’s looking for. Should he say yes… or no? It’s in their nature to grapple and spar and give each other trouble. Still, he’s at Vasquez’s mercy at the moment, and if he should push too hard and turn him off the whole thing, Faraday doesn’t know that he’d ever find the strength to forgive himself for putting a stop to it. So, against his very nature, he plays it safe, and shakes his head _no._

Whatever answer Vasquez was hoping for or expecting, his expression lets nothing on. But it must be a satisfying enough response—either that or he had no intention of stopping anyhow—because he goes right back to work.

It’s not slow or languid this time. He swallows him down with a vehemence that feels a little like a challenge, but Faraday doesn’t let himself take the bait. He does have a little more trouble keeping his voice down.

Vasquez’s new, urgent pace, the hollowing of his cheeks, the spit that won’t keep itself inside his mouth but instead starts leaking down his chin—which Faraday only learns when he lets his impatient hands curl gently around Vasquez’s jaw—it’s all got Faraday terribly worried his number’ll be up too soon.

And as much as he wants to chase that feeling—that urge—he’s not exactly eager to meet the end of this encounter, doesn’t trust what his body will feel or his mind will want or his mouth will say after he’s spent. He isn’t sure what Vasquez will want or expect from him, doesn’t trust himself to be able to give it to him once his mind starts to clear.

He tries to stop thinking about it, which isn’t altogether difficult with the quick, wet sounds of Vasquez’s mouth, not to mention the way he’s starting to groan around Faraday’s cock, the vibrations it’s sending through him. And even though he’s mildly concerned it’ll push him right over the edge, he even lets himself look down to see it. He hadn’t registered the absence of Vasquez’s right hand, but now he sees it pushed inside his own lazily half-opened fly.

“God damn,” Faraday breathes, shivers, suddenly not at all content with their situation, suddenly feeling much too far from Vasquez, much too close to finishing. “Stop,” Faraday says, and Vasquez groans—an obscene complaint—and stills his hand, pulls it from his pants. “No,” Faraday says, voice too high as Vasquez sucks harder. “No, I mean _stop,”_ he says frantically, and does his best to do it gently when he pulls at Vasquez’s hair.

Vasquez pulls off, slurred Spanish words falling out of his mouth along with Faraday’s cock. He makes some silent appeal when he looks up at Faraday, but whatever he’s trying to communicate with his eyes is as foreign to Faraday as his mother tongue.

“Up,” Faraday says, trying to sound even halfway toward put-together. “Get up here, you.”

Thankfully, Vasquez complies. Faraday’s eyes are more adjusted to the dark of the church, and when Vasquez rises, his face slides into the moonlight enough that Faraday can make it out perfectly. His mouth, already a salacious sight at any old ordinary time—and Faraday’s watched it pulling on cigarillos, devouring meals like a man starved, chewing on straw or his own fingernails—is swollen, wet, lips flushed a deep red. His eyes are darker than Faraday’s ever seen them, black and hooded and weak as he catches his breath. Faraday takes as long a brief, greedy instant as he can to look at him before pulling him forward by the vest ‘til their mouths crash clumsy and hungry together.

Vasquez keeps pulling and mouthing like he’s got something to say but Faraday won’t let him, isn’t willing to give up his mouth, even if he’d like to know what words it wants to say. He just can’t let himself stop tasting Vasquez, mouth warm and swollen from sucking his cock. Faraday lets go of his vest with one hand, pushes it down between their hips, pushes it inside the fly that Vasquez so conveniently worked open and tries hard not to think as he wraps his hand around Vasquez’s cock.

There’s something about the sound Vasquez makes, about the sweet moaning breath that pushes out through his nose when he feels Faraday’s hand that gives Faraday the strength, the courage, to actually move once he’s done it. His own cock’s still hard, still spit-slick, cold and rubbing uncomfortably against the rough fabric of Vasquez’s pants, but it’s just the right amount of rough, just what he needs to put himself on ice for a moment and keep himself from putting an end to their fun right then and there.

So he strokes Vasquez, tries to mimic Vasquez’s earlier movements as best he can, wants to make it feel good, make it feel calculated, make it feel like he’s ever done this to any other cock but his own. All the while, he’s sweeping his tongue against Vasquez’s, pushes the hand that isn’t down Vasquez’s pants up behind his neck, keeps him close, though Vasquez isn’t making much of an attempt anymore to pull away. In fact, he seems content, seems downright pleased to let Faraday keep him right where he is.

Faraday’s just starting to feel a bit proud of himself, a bit less than weak, when Vasquez’s hand finds its way back around his cock. It catches him off guard, and he’s the one who pulls away. He tips his head back, moans loud up toward the scorched roof of the church. “Jesus,” he sighs.

Vasquez is already kissing down his neck, and Faraday can feel him smile when he says, “Careful, _güero._ He’ll hear you.”

Damn it. Faraday laughs, though it breaks into something breathier when Vasquez twists his wrist. “Don’t—” he starts, swallows, tries again. “Don’t rightly care, at the moment.”

Vasquez drags his teeth up Faraday’s neck, pushes his hips forward a little, sliding his cock into Faraday’s fist, reminding him what he ought to be doing. “It’s okay,” he says, lips just below Faraday’s ear. “You said it yourself. Won’t have to go far for forgiveness.”

Faraday grins, face still turned upward, the feel of Vasquez’s breath against his skin giving him chills. “You ain’t kiddin’,” Faraday answers, dips his head back down, searches for Vasquez’s mouth as he starts stroking him properly again. There’s a moment, when he finds it, before they start kissing again, that they’re both smiling, the space between their mouths staggeringly warm for how cool and dark the night is.

Then, they’re kissing again, and Faraday’s so wrapped up in it all that he can barely keep his hand at work, just keeps thrusting into Vasquez’s grip, biting at his mouth, making sounds too high and too eager and it’s really a miracle if Vasquez hasn’t got him figured out yet. Vasquez pushes his hips forward in frustration a few times before he seems to get fed up, pulls Faraday away by the wrist, and takes both their cocks in hand.

“Shit,” Faraday hisses into his mouth. “Shit, that’s good.” It is. It’s too good, his cock snug against Vasquez’s, leaking over his fingers. He won’t last much longer. He wonders whether he should say something, but for the moment he just tilts his head back again. Maybe, with his mouth out of reach, Vasquez will talk to him more in that low, gravelly rumble, or at least press more kisses against his throat.

Faraday is lucky enough to earn both. “It’s good,” Vasquez agrees, voice a little shakier than it’s been so far tonight. The way he’s breathing against Faraday’s throat, tongue darting and pressing sloppy against his skin, panting while he brings them closer, is just obscene. He runs his free hand up Faraday’s chest, up his neck, pushes his fingers into Faraday’s hair and gets a good hold of it. “How close, _guapo?”_

 _“Shit,”_ Faraday swears again, feeling spoiled by the words Vasquez offers him, few though they are. “Close,” he says, closes his eyes tight, keeps his chin up, can't let himself look at Vasquez or chase after his mouth right now. “’M real close, Vas.”

It’s Vasquez, then, who gives himself away, moaning loud against Faraday’s neck, pushing his hips forward so hard that he traps his own hand between them, has no choice but to stop working their cocks for a moment. It sends a bolt of pride through Faraday. It makes him want to say his name again. But he doesn’t. Vasquez is muttering, slurring in Spanish as he presses his lips against Faraday’s skin over and over, and while Faraday can’t make out the words—hell, he might not be able to even if Vasquez were speaking English—he feels like he can understand. It’s encouraging. Almost _pleading._ And he’s proven right when Vasquez finally pulls back enough and says it plainly. “Come on,” he says, commanding, voice husky. “Come on, _güero.”_

His body’s obeying before he even starts to stupidly mutter, “Alright.” He’s spilling over Vasquez’s fist, and at once he abandons all his efforts not to show his hand. When he says Vasquez’s name again, it’s a whine that echoes out through the church. Vasquez scrapes his teeth along Faraday’s throat, pumps his fist fast, working Faraday through it and trying to catch up. And Faraday’s body’s unwinding, he dips his head down again and isn’t at all gentle or graceful as he pushes at Vasquez’s face with his own until their mouths meet again, and Faraday’s grateful, too grateful, that he’s got somewhere to keep saying _Vas_ into besides the open air.

 _“Güero,”_ Vasquez mumbles against Faraday’s mouth, hips jerking and fist finally starting to slow. “Fa—” he starts to say, and Faraday sighs into it, hums encouragement and desperation back at him. And Vasquez, not for the first time tonight, is merciful. “Faraday,” he says properly, although it sounds like he isn’t quite sure about it, like he’s performing some unnatural rite in using his name. But Faraday just grabs him by the back of the neck with one hand, the back of the head with the other, holds him too close and too tight and pushes his tongue too far inside Vasquez’s mouth to stop himself from moaning so loudly, so gratefully.

He digs his fingertips into Vasquez’s scalp, his skin, lets Vasquez stroke himself through his orgasm even as his own cock is getting over-sensitive to the feeling. He can hear Vasquez’s muted moans, can _feel_ them vibrating in his mouth, and he tries to commit them to memory, tries desperately to make this moment stretch out. It can’t last forever, but it doesn’t go unnoticed that Vasquez keeps kissing him for a spell even after his hand stills. Faraday’s already terrified and uncertain as his heart slows and he gets his breathing under control, but he’ll keep kissing Vasquez for as long as he’ll let him.

It’s too soon, however long it actually takes, when Vasquez pulls away. Faraday opens his eyes to see Vasquez looking down, wrinkling his nose. Faraday licks his swollen lips. “Made a damn mess, didn’t we?” he says, trying to speak softly, but it’s no use. The church is suddenly much too silent around them now that the blood’s stopped rushing in his head. Vasquez only nods in response as he frowns before wiping his hand reluctantly on the sash hanging from his waist. Faraday tries to ignore the way the absence of his voice breaks his heart.

He’s not quite sure what he’s supposed to do now. The heat, the fire that was roaring between them just a few minutes ago dissipating, leaving behind a stale, smoky kind of atmosphere in the air around them that Faraday doesn’t care to breathe in for much longer. They’re still so close. Faraday would barely even have to lean in to kiss him again. He could grab him by the waist of his unbuttoned pants and pull him so they were pressed right up against each other again. He doesn’t.

He’s still drunk. He’d forgotten how drunk he was in all the excitement, but now they’re standing quietly again, the church is starting to spin around them just a bit. “Ought to, uh,” he begins clumsily, and Vasquez finally looks up and meets his eye, though Faraday can’t read his expression to save his own life (or maybe he just makes a point not to look closely enough). “Reckon I ought to hit the hay.”

Vasquez tilts his head, his eyes still unreadable. _“Sí,”_ he agrees after a moment. “More work tomorrow.”

Faraday nods. Then they both wait for too long before Faraday clears his throat, slips out from between Vasquez and the wall. “‘Night, then,” he says, and doesn’t look back as he makes his way for the door. If he looks back, he’ll never make it out without humiliating himself. He does, however, stop before crossing the threshold. “Uh,” he says again, stupidly. “Thanks. Y’know. Gra-see-yas.”

Then he’s gone without waiting for any reply.

It’s a lucky thing, really, that Faraday’s so far from sober. Lucky, because for all that the world is starting to spin and his guts are already so noticeably furious with him and his heart is so primed to ache too fiercely, by the time that he makes it back to the boarding house and up the stairs and into his room and back to his bed, he’s too tired for anything but falling face down on it and passing out.

All the thoughts, the awful feelings that would likely be the perfect kind of fodder for a restless night, they don’t stand a chance against the too-many glasses of whiskey sloshing heavy in his belly, the fog billowing up and over his mind, blacking it out just in time for him start remembering the way Vasquez’s breath felt on his neck. Just at that perfect moment when he feels about ready to break into pieces.

\---

The moment he wakes up, he knows he’s in for a rough morning. He slept, at least. He slept _hard,_ which is a fortunate thing, because with only so much time ahead of them before Bogue is due back, he couldn’t really have afforded a sleepless night.

Not that he can exactly afford the wicked hangover that feels like it’s pinning him to his mattress, either. He knows it’ll only get worse when he opens his eyes and sits up, so he puts that off for now, rolling over slowly, pulling his pillow over his head, earning himself a few long, precious moments of relief.

And then, he _remembers._

The first thing he notices is that he’s still dressed. Didn’t even take off his boots. Then it all washes over him in waves, one little thing after another, more and more until the whole night’s a vivid picture in his head.

Faraday sits up, all at once, his hangover suddenly the least of his worries.

 _Vasquez._ Lord, it really happened. He gazes down at himself, rubs the sleep out of his eyes with one hand while he slides the other down over his chest, his hip, cataloguing terrain that Vasquez helped himself to so avidly.

He remembers everything so well. Remarkably well, really, considering the state he’d been in. He can practically still hear the things Vasquez said to him, words he understood and words he didn’t, echoing in his head, whispered against his skin.

He peels himself out of bed, head throbbing, mouth dry and sticky. He takes too long a look at himself in the mirror, can’t keep from running his hands over himself, remembering everything in excruciating detail. The hem of his vest is spotted with dried spend, and he can’t really be sure whether it’s Vasquez’s or his own, but it makes his belly drop all the same.

It drops again as he’s getting undressed and notes the dark red mark above his collarbone, remembers Vasquez grappling with his bandana and breathing hot against his neck.

His bandana, though, is nowhere to be found. Not tied around his neck, not stuffed into his pocket, not discarded on the wooden floor. Could be that it’s still lying in the dingy spot in the church where he dropped it. He wonders absently if he’s seen the last of it as he dips a rag into the washbasin and does what he can to wipe some of the grime and the sweat off himself, spiteful though it makes him to clean off any trace of what happened last night.

Faraday’s at odds with himself as he cleans up, the effort more or less fruitless since he’s just pulling on his filthy clothes again. He does his best to scrub the stain out of his vest and hangs it out the window to dry.

As he makes his way out, stairs creaking beneath his boots, his head is killing him, and his stomach’s empty and growling in revolt. More than that, his pulse is racing, body on edge. The bottom line is that he’s absolutely _dreading_ the prospect of facing Vasquez after everything that happened.

His heart is in his throat as he steps outside. Sam and the rest of them are likely at breakfast, at the very same table they’d been gathered around last night. Faraday curses himself, some stupid little grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he heads that way.

Because, terrifying as it is, mixed with all that dread is some incorrigible spark, one the gambler in him’s all-too-familiar with. Something making him quicken his pace, like he can’t quite face Vasquez soon enough.

…

Breakfast is more or less benign. Sam’s got plenty to say about the coming day’s plans. Besides finishing and checking and double-checking the many traps they’ve been setting around the town, they’ll be working on restoring the church. Faraday nearly has a mind to scoff outright at the idea of dedicating what could well be their last day of preparation to what seems a pretty needless endeavor, but Horne’s bowing his head and Sam doesn’t seem in the mood for his bullshit this morning. It’s easier to choke down his food and help himself to a lot of water, and a swig of whiskey for good measure. Takes the edge off a bit, even if it does earn him a glare or two.

Red’s sent off to scout the area, try and get eyes on Bogue and his army and give everybody a good idea how long they’ve got before their final hour. Goodnight’s less verbose than usual, even a little squirrelly, if Faraday isn’t imagining it. Billy seems to be sparing him a few more glances than usual when he looks up from his knives.

Vasquez is quiet. Faraday doesn’t let himself stare as much as he’d like to, but every look he does manage to cast Vasquez’s way is met with little to interpret—he eats, he nods, mutters agreement when Sam’s doling out tasks. He gulps generous mouthfuls of coffee and drains two cups in the short time between Faraday’s arrival and their dismissal.

When Faraday gets up from the table, he looks over to Vasquez once again, and finds him looking back. They stare for a moment that feels like ages as everybody else files out, and Faraday resettles his hat on top of his head, restless, feeling oddly stripped bare in just his shirt, vest still up in his room, handkerchief still unaccounted for.

Vasquez’s mouth quirks up, slightly. So slightly Faraday wonders whether he’s imagining it. “Something on your neck, _güero,”_ he says after a moment.

Faraday’s other hand rushes to his collar, gut dropping, eyebrows shooting up before he can think to maintain some kind of poker face. “I, uh—”

Vasquez chuckles and walks toward him. _“No pasa nada,”_ he says, coolly putting him out of his misery. It reminds Faraday of last night. His gut twists again. Vasquez walks by him and puts a hand on his shoulder as the other produces his handkerchief. “You lost this,” he says, as if in passing, as Faraday takes it from him.

By the time Faraday’s got his head on enough to respond, the door’s swinging shut behind Vasquez.

Faraday ties the handkerchief around his neck, and takes another swig of whiskey before heading out himself.

Because it’s gonna be a long day.

…

 

They’re pretty well apart from each other the whole morning, which is just as well. Vasquez is at work in the church. Faraday’d rather keep digging ditches and rigging explosives and letting the din of work throughout the town drown out all the things that Vasquez said last night—the things _he_ said last night—that are still echoing in his head.

All the time he’s working, his mind races insufferably through scenario after scenario, possibility after possibility. He can’t stop thinking of getting Vasquez alone again, getting his hands back on him. And he’s damning himself at every turn, cursing himself for hoping and wanting so desperately. Trying to convince himself that nothing else is going to happen. Trying to convince himself he’s okay with that. Swearing under his breath about how this is all a lot more than he’d bargained for.

It’s past noon when Horne comes to collect him from the field and lets him know that Goodnight and Vasquez are stringing up the church bell, and that Sam’d like all hands on deck to pull it up. Faraday rolls his eyes and wipes his brow and follows him back through town, taking it in stride the solemn way Horne speaks as they approach the church, still hardly a sacred sight, if you ask Faraday. Still burnt up and hollowed out and teeming with sweat-drenched, dirt-covered men all eager to lend a hand.

And, of course, it doesn’t help at all to remember the way Vasquez had backed Faraday up against the wall inside it. Faraday smirks as he realizes, somehow, for the first time, how sinfully fitting it was to have had Vasquez on his knees in there.

“A sight, isn’t it, son?” Horne asks, seeing him smile, apparently pleased.

Faraday nods. “Yessir,” he agrees amicably. “Quite a sight.”

Vasquez isn’t actually anywhere to be seen as Horne pulls a rope over to where Faraday and Billy are standing. The sun is strong, brutal, beating down hard on his shoulders through his shirt. He barely thinks what he’s doing as he starts pulling the rope, following Horne and Billy’s rhythm. His muscles are sore and he could use a drink and his skin feels like it’s frying. He knows that by all rights he’s fit to collapse, but his nerves are still alight, mind consumed with vivid details again, so much harder to ignore now that Vasquez is close by. Even if Faraday can’t see him.

But then, he does. Vasquez emerges through the church doors, no hat, no vest, shirt untucked. A damn mess. Faraday’s glad he’s already kneeling, so he doesn’t really ever have to admit to himself whether he went, genuinely, a little weak in the knees.

He’s impatient to be done pulling on this rope. He’s too exhausted and consumed to let himself stay away from Vasquez much longer, now that he’s got him in his sights again. All at once, he snaps out of his reverie to see Horne’s stopped pulling and is, instead, staring up at the bell, now properly hung. Vasquez is standing in the street, looking up at it as well, not so very far from Faraday at all.

So Faraday gets up, dusts his knees off, resettles his hat, and walks over to stand beside Vasquez. Vasquez doesn’t look at him, doesn’t do anything besides stare up at the church bell and offer his respect, or his appreciation, in the form of the sign of the cross. Faraday’s grateful his body’s so tired. There’s an ugly desperation inside him that, if he had a bit more energy, might make him act on some truly reckless wants.

Some children come around with buckets of water, and while one of them is offering some to Sam, Faraday looks tentatively over to Vasquez, who looks back, expression altogether unreadable. That restless spark in Faraday’s belly has him willing to push, just a little. He raises one eyebrow and nods slightly, just _barely_ toward the church. It doesn’t get him much in return, but it gets him something. Some flicker of acknowledgment. Some little glint of mischief behind his eyes. Faraday doesn’t do too much to try and quell the voice inside him that’s trying to insist it’s a promise. He just bites his lip, tired and lazy, and turns away to join everybody else in looking up at the damned bell until Red rides back and gives Sam the news.

Bogue’s close. And he’ll be here at dawn with an army.

…

Dinner’s quieter than it was last night. There’s plenty of drink to go around, but none of them is as keen as usual to help himself. Goodnight’s behavior, only odd at breakfast time, has evolved to fully worrying, and Faraday’s hoping his fears about the man are unfounded, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to convince himself of that.

There’s an uncomfortable seriousness in the atmosphere. It isn’t as if none of them had realized before the odds they were up against. They’d all known, up front, the kind of foe they were due to face. But to know there’s so little time left, to know there’s little opportunity for laughter, for joy, ahead of them before what may well be their last fight… Well, it seems to have finally put a damper on things that even their newfound comradery (Faraday can’t call it what he wants to—friendship, kinship) is too weak to brighten.

Sam pushes up from the table first, tips his hat to them, and heads outside. Horne’s finished eating, sitting, hands folded over his belly, quietly staring past his empty plate. Red’s eaten even less than usual, but he’s picking feebly at what’s left of his dinner. Billy is looking, somewhat nervously, to Goodnight as he passes him a lit cigarette. Vasquez is still eating. For the first time since Faraday met him, he’s eating slowly.

Faraday’s restless, can’t quite make himself comfortable at the table. Keeps fidgeting with the hem of his vest, which it turned out he cleaned well enough, although the absence of the stain ended up instilling its own irritating brand of disappointment in him. He finds himself full faster, since he’s barely drinking. He’d like to drink, desperately. It’d help him sleep, surely. And sleep could do him a world of good before the fight. But heaven help him if he tries to tackle tomorrow in the same state he tackled today. Could mean the difference between life and death, he fears. He almost laughs at the idea that it could even be halfway up to him, that his being drunk or sober or hungover or fresh as a daisy could make any difference. Could be that an army puts them down in hardly any time at all.

He hopes he at least gets to blow some of the dynamite first.

He swallows hard, takes a small sip of whiskey, thinking about it. Now’s hardly the time to bring on the shakes, after all.

…

An hour later, Faraday finds himself out on the porch with Vasquez, and Horne, and Red. Faraday just keeps smoking and shuffling his cards, and none of them has much to say, which is just fine. Faraday’s head is loud enough.

He’s not at all surprised when he sees Sam briefly intercept Goodnight on his way out. He could tell by the sight of Billy, lonely at the bar, that he’d finally been proven right, and that Goodnight had either already run or had all-but. It’s frustrating that Sam hardly even seems angry at all. He must be. Faraday sure is. But then, it’s some low, soft-burning fire in the pit of his stomach compared to the wealth of unease at the thought of the fight ahead of them.

Most frustrating of all by far is how, even now, even facing what they’re facing, even knowing Goodnight’s gone and Billy’s inside drinking too much in his grief for him… Faraday’s still thinking of Vasquez. Still waiting impatiently for Sam and Horne and Red to call it a night, so he can have one measly second alone, so he can say something, say _anything,_ even if it means he’ll humiliate himself. After all, he’s as good as dead come morning. It’s a quiet, urgent, hollow kind of desperation, and he’d be willing to act on it, be brave enough if he could just get a moment alone with him. Like last night, out here, just the two of them.

Faraday fights the urge to shiver as he watches Vasquez and thinks on it, sitting just beside the spot they’d been standing last night when Faraday had been brave enough to push forward and kiss him.

Of course it doesn’t help at all the way that Vasquez is sucking on his cigar. It nearly puts the way he was sucking Faraday’s cock to shame. It’s so ostentatious that Faraday’s having a hard time convincing himself it isn’t entirely and calculatedly for his own benefit.

Sam approaches them after Goodnight rides off past the townsfolk, all gathered before the church to pray, which Faraday only partly resents, counting himself and the rest of the seven (make it six) a mite more responsible for any possibility of an impending victory. (Though he shouldn’t write off Mrs. Cullen or Teddy Q.) Sam makes everybody’s staying-or-going into a big, solemn ordeal, offering amnesty. Red just nods. Vasquez commits casually, like he’s just got nothing better to do. Horne all but delivers a damn sermon.

When the attention shifts to Faraday, he doesn’t really feel like he owes them an answer. Of course he’s staying. Isn’t that obvious? What good is amnesty? There’s people here that need them. They started a job. They’ll finish it, however many of them end up in boxes in the ground. Faraday just looks down and shuffles his cards. He’s suddenly aggravated at all of it. At Goodnight for leaving, at Sam for giving any of them an out. At likely dying come morning.

And still, somehow, most of all, he’s furious that it’s the five of them out here. That he’s not alone with Vasquez. He sits and stares until Sam walks off, and then he gets up unthinkingly to watch him go. Behind him, words and laughter are exchanged, but he doesn’t pay them enough mind as he watches Sam walk into the church, leaving an ugly feeling in his chest.

When he finally turns back around, Vasquez is following Horne and Red inside.

Faraday gets up and heads back to his room, feeling too damn sorry for himself, and wishing he was drunk.

…

He hears the rest of them make their way upstairs in turn, save for Horne, who’s presumably gone back to his tent and not gone back on his promise to stay and fight. First is Billy, helped along by Red. It must be, because either Sam or Vasquez would have _something_ to say. But it’s only Billy’s defeated voice he hears, limited though his words may be.

Next, he thinks, is Sam. He doesn’t know what makes him so sure. Maybe just plain hopefulness that the sound of steady, tired footsteps that go right past his door belong to somebody besides Vasquez. A door opens. A door closes. And Faraday just lies on his bed, still dressed. Restless. Unwilling to admit that what he’s really doing is waiting.

He’s furious with himself. He ought to be asleep, but without enough whiskey to settle him, he feels miles from it. He’s even thinking of taking care of himself, though he’s fighting the urge because it’s liable to depress him (not to mention the fact he’s still hoping he won’t have to). It’s a while later when he hears the last footsteps.

They’re slow, and Faraday can practically see him walking, see him shuffling from the top of the stairs, see his easy, exhausted gait. The steps stop outside Faraday’s door, and Faraday doesn’t move a muscle. He holds his breath.

And then, the footsteps pick up, and they move on down the hall. A door opens, and then it closes, and then Faraday’s heart sinks.

Oh, hell.

He starts breathing again and stands up. He’s as good as dead, he reminds himself as he heads for the door.

…

He doesn’t let himself linger long, makes himself knock on Vasquez’s door the moment he’s standing in front of it.

Of course, Vasquez makes him sweat a little. There’s a rustling, the creak of floorboards. A match striking, and then Faraday can see soft light glowing from underneath the door, heart thudding in his chest as he hears footsteps approaching it.

When it opens, Vasquez is grinning, like he’s not at all surprised to see Faraday standing there. Faraday, though, is caught off-guard by the fact Vasquez isn’t wearing his hat, or his boots, or his vest. He’s just standing comfortably, hips tilted, braced with a hand against the doorframe, eyeing Faraday up and down. He doesn’t say anything, and Faraday squirms for a few moments before nodding past him and saying, “Can I come in?”

Vasquez nods, steps out of the way, motions into the room with his other hand. Faraday rushes past him inside.

“In a hurry?” Vasquez says as he locks the door behind them, like he’s trying to catch Faraday in some big secret, like Faraday’s got any cards left to play after all the plain want Vasquez pulled out of him out on the porch.

Faraday stands still, watches Vasquez turn around, admires the sight of him. He licks his lips and nods. The boarding house, for all it’s still, isn’t silent—the snores of their sleeping compatriots are loud enough to hear through the walls. Faraday suspects he’s got a shred of wiggle room where keeping quiet is concerned. Even so, he nearly whispers when he says, “You knew just what you were doin’ out there.”

Vasquez eyes crease as he smiles, all but admitting to just what Faraday’s getting at, but still asks, “What was I doing?”

Faraday wants to approach him. He wants to be the one to close in on him this time. But he finds his body waiting, finds his mouth going on. “Goin’ at your cigar the way you were,” he says. “You were fixin’ to put me in an awful hurry.” His fingers are twitching at his sides. He isn’t quite sure which of the two of them’ll be first to draw. He’d like to be the one to do it, but he finds himself waiting still, turning to look around, eyes falling on a room not very unlike his own. Just a bed, and a little table with Vasquez’s clothes and his hat and his gunbelt piled on top.

“You disappeared,” Vasquez says from over by the door, and Faraday tilts his head, turns around to face him, raises an eyebrow. “We went inside, after Goodnight left. But you disappeared.”

Faraday licks his lips. “Came back here, is all,” he says, and Vasquez nods. “You were lookin’ for me, then?” he asks, takes something like a half-step forward, tries to smirk.

Vasquez rolls his eyes. “Don’t act so surprised, _güero.”_ He shifts momentarily, like he’s going to take a step, but then he doesn’t. “Thought I made myself pretty clear last night.”

There Faraday’s belly goes again. Before Vasquez can come any closer, Faraday rushes him, puts him right up against the door, revels in the little gasp Vasquez huffs out, thus far the only sign that any part of him is as weak as all of Faraday feels. He puts his hands on Vasquez’s neck, leans in too harshly for another kiss, sweeps his tongue along the seam of Vasquez’s mouth. Vasquez opens up, lets Faraday inside, tastes like smoke and whiskey.

When they finally pull away to breathe, Vasquez has his hands threaded into Faraday’s hair, and he only takes a moment before saying, “The bed,” and Faraday nods, even if he’s leaning forward to nip at Vasquez’s bottom lip, even if the groan it elicits from Vasquez makes the thought of stepping away from him for even a moment sound unbearable.

“Bed,” Faraday agrees, doesn’t let go, makes no move toward it.

Vasquez smiles against his mouth, starts walking forward, hands slipping out of Faraday’s hair and running instead down his chest, slipping beneath his arms, settling on his hips. Faraday walks backward, lets Vasquez guide him over creaking floorboards.

It’s a mess. Faraday’s hardly aware of what he’s doing as he grabs at Vasquez carelessly, every instinct and urge and want his drunk ass managed to stave off last night is thrown to the wind, simply no match for the newfound and resolute bravery that’s fueling him tonight.

Vasquez hums, goes to work on Faraday’s vest, though it’s no simple task as Faraday pulls roughly at his shirt. It’s some graceless tussle, Faraday unwilling to let up until he’s got Vasquez bare-chested.

 _“Cabrón,”_ Vasquez is laughing by the time he gets the vest off, and Faraday saves them both a lot of trouble and peels his own shirt off quickly, rushing through it, it’s still hanging off of one wrist as he wraps his arms around Vasquez again.

It’s all some rising wave, a big chase toward _more_ and _faster_ as he pulls Vasquez close and growls hungry into his mouth, momentum building up until the moment he feels Vasquez playing at his belt buckle, and he freezes inexplicably, foolishly.

Foolish because it’s not as if it’s something new. It’s nothing that Vasquez didn’t do last night. But he’d be stupid not to realize it means something different tonight, something more.

“Alright, _güero?”_ Vasquez asks, though he doesn’t still his hands. Once Faraday’s belt’s unbuckled, his fly worked open, Vasquez must finally have noted the lack of response, and he peers up to look at him directly. “Alright?”

Faraday nods before he speaks. “Alright,” he supplies, throat altogether too dry, wanting desperately and abstractly. His hands manage to reach out again, splay flat against Vasquez’s chest.

“Tell me,” Vasquez says, running fingertips beneath Faraday’s navel, leaning forward to press searing lips to Faraday’s jaw. “Tell me what you want, _guapo.”_

Faraday shivers at the word. “Want you,” he says, under his breath, because that’s all he really knows. He wants just about anything Vasquez will give him. And he’d probably give Vasquez just about anything he asked for. “Just,” he starts, frustrated at his loss for words, unfamiliar territory for him. He swallows. He licks his lips. “Just touch me.”

Something softens in Vasquez’s gaze. He nods. _“Sí,”_ he agrees, suddenly sounding much gentler than before. “Anything. _Lo que quieras.”_

Faraday’s back arches at the sound of his voice, words he doesn’t understand sliding comfortably down his spine, heating the space between them again like kindling. He puts his hands behind Vasquez’s head and pulls him forward, presses their lips together and lets himself fall back onto the bed, pulling Vasquez down on top of him.

He sighs into Vasquez’s mouth as he feels hands running up his arms, along his sides, gripping at his shoulders, his hips, indecisive, indulgent. Hungry. Vasquez’s lips are on his neck, just under his ear, sucking wet and hot against his skin. “Jesus, Vas,” Faraday mutters, runs his own hands down Vasquez’s back, earns sweet sounds, low in Vasquez’s throat, in return.

Faraday counts himself lucky, too lucky, to find himself where he does, lying on Vasquez’s bed, Vasquez’s weight pressing down on top of him. Vasquez moves his mouth down Faraday’s chest, and it gives away all his wanting as his breath catches and tightens underneath it. It’s no use trying to hide it, especially once a strong hand snakes inside his open pants, pulls out his cock.

 _“Levanta,”_ Vasquez mutters, giving Faraday a few strokes before letting go in favor of getting a solid grip on his pants and starting to tug. Faraday lifts up his hips, heart racing, cock leaking, and Vasquez pulls them down over his ass. As Faraday settles again, Vasquez gets to his feet, leans down, pulls at Faraday’s boots.

Faraday sits up. “Here,” he says, leans forward to kiss Vasquez again before bending over to get rid of his boots and kick his pants off the rest of the way. He can’t quite sit still as Vasquez reaches for his own belt. Instead, he gets up, swats Vasquez’s hands away, takes matters into his own.

Faraday’s nerves are all alight. He tries not to think too hard, tries not to second-guess himself. He can tell Vasquez knows his way around another man, and he’s not keen to admit inadequacy, not outright. He works Vasquez’s belt open, leans in and kisses Vasquez’s neck as he gets his fly undone, nearly surprises himself as he kisses lower, licking and biting his way down Vasquez’s chest until he’s kneeling before him.

Vasquez pushes his fingers into Faraday’s hair again, just shy of too rough, and Faraday wants to look up at him, but has a feeling whatever’s in Vasquez’s eyes will throw him off, make him lose his nerve, so instead he hooks his hands onto the waist of Vasquez’s pants and pulls them down.

He distantly registers the sharp breath Vasquez sucks in, but his focus is more directed at Vasquez’s cock as it springs free, bounces tantalizingly close to Faraday’s face. Faraday licks his lips as the grip on his hair tightens a bit, though it doesn’t stop him from leaning forward, rubbing his cheek down the hot length of him until his forehead’s resting against Vasquez’s belly.

 _“Güero,”_ Vasquez sighs above him, and Faraday isn’t sure how far he’s going to let himself go, but he pulls back slowly, dragging his lips up the side of Vasquez’s cock. _“Pensé que…”_ Vasquez is muttering, fingernails scraping along Faraday’s scalp. “I thought you wanted me to touch you,” he sighs, and, Jesus, Faraday still really does.

He presses one, then two kisses tentatively near the head of Vasquez’s cock. “I do,” he says, breathing too hard, though Vasquez doesn’t seem to mind the feeling.

“Lie down,” Vasquez says, voice low and something like desperate above him. Faraday doesn’t move at first, just keeps brushing and breathing against Vasquez’s lap, spellbound, can’t seem to bother hiding from whatever it is that’s got him weak and soft and too damn gentle.

This week, this _life_ of his, has been filled with so much sweat and dust and blood. So much running and aching, fighting and killing. Tomorrow, they’ll do more killing, and if they’re very, _very_ lucky, they’ll make it out alive. The point is, he’s had more than enough opportunities to do things rough and ugly and angry. And even if some part of him is telling him he ought to do just that right now, ought to spit at Vasquez, bite and tear at him, he’s still on his knees, running desperate hands over his hips, breathing sweetly into the curls at the base of his cock.

 _“Ven aquí, güero,”_ Vasquez says above him, a lilt to his voice like Faraday’s just killing him, and Faraday lets him grab his arms and pull him up. _“Ven,_ or I just might let you do it.” Vasquez is pawing at him indecisively, one hand on his chest like he wants to push him onto the bed, the other tight behind his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. It goes like that while Vasquez slips his tongue inside Faraday’s mouth, sounds catching between them, hums and purrs and things that might well be the front-ends of words, of each other’s names.

Faraday wants more. His mind is too loud with suggestions, and each time he thinks of something he wants to do, he considers what it would be like to say it out loud, to ask for it. He wants to taste Vasquez, wants to feel him. Wants to wrap around him. He shudders, and pulls away, overwhelmed, from Vasquez’s mouth with a moan.

Vasquez doesn’t chase him, he just heaves some great breath that sounds almost like relief. He takes the opportunity to push Faraday down onto the bed.

Faraday settles himself, makes himself comfortable—or as comfortable as he can be with his heart hammering against his ribs, his skin flushed hot and pink. He watches as Vasquez hastily pushes his pants the rest of the way down and kicks them aside. He half expects Vasquez to descend on him immediately, strong and sure, and even if he’s terrified he feels perfectly prepared to let Vasquez do whatever he likes.

But Vasquez just looks at him, brings a hand down to his own cock, an expression on his face like he wishes he could help giving himself a few slow strokes. It makes Faraday think of last night, think of the way Vasquez had sucked his cock with his hand shoved inside his open fly. The way he’d _whined_ when Faraday had said _stop._ Deep in his chest, there’s a swell of pride and disbelief as he processes how much Vasquez wanted him.

How much he wants him now.

Faraday shifts on the bed, runs a hand a little nervously through his hair, holds the other out toward Vasquez. He wants to say something slick, something clever, something inviting. Vasquez looks at him like he expects as much. Maddeningly, nothing comes to mind. It takes a fair amount of effort and courage just to keep his eyes on Vasquez’s as he nods.

Vasquez’s eyes go round and soft and he nods back at him, lets go of himself, climbs onto the bed and kneels upright, knees on either side of one of Faraday’s thighs, and Faraday sighs at the contact, the feel of skin-against-skin. The air in the room feels so thick, so warm and heady. It’s a different kind of fire between the two of them tonight, sober and slow and _strong_ and Faraday doesn’t care to keep his hands to himself any longer. Decides here and now that he won’t. He reaches up with just one hand at first, traces his fingertips along Vasquez’s ribs, admires the way it makes Vasquez’s breath catch. The way he can see it in the shudder of his chest.

“Touch you,” Vasquez breathes, almost like a question. He’s certainly looking to Faraday as if searching for an answer. So Faraday nods again, and Vasquez leans forward, reaches up and trails his fingertips from Faraday’s shoulder down his arms. It makes Faraday shiver, and though Vasquez doesn’t mention it, he must notice. _“Hermoso,”_ he mutters as he runs his fingers back up his arm. _“Qué hermoso,”_ he says, the words loose and languid, a tonic for Faraday’s nerves. _“Puedes relajarte.”_

Faraday nods, even though he doesn’t understand. It makes Vasquez smile.

“You want me to speak English?” Vasquez asks, warm, considerate. Accommodating. Faraday tries to stamp out the little flame of stubborn anger that flares in him at the thought of being coddled so gently. But he recalls quickly enough just how appealing _gentle_ is.

“I don’t—” Faraday begins, licks his lips, brings his hands to Vasquez’s hips as he tries his best to grapple with the unnatural notion of speaking honestly. “It doesn’t matter,” he says eventually, and Vasquez raises an eyebrow. “I just like the way you talk to me,” Faraday admits, cheeks burning, already scorched by the sun and flushed from the heat of Vasquez’s body and attention.

Vasquez licks his lips, puts a gentle hand to Faraday’s jaw, rubs a thumb over his cheek. _“Me caes bien, güero,”_ he says, smiling, leaning forward to kiss him. _“Me caes muy bien.”_ He kisses him again. “I’ll talk to you as much as you like.”

Whether it’s just that they’re likely to die so soon, or the strange absence of alcohol, or the warmth and comfort of a room and a bed, Faraday doesn’t know. Some mix of it all, he supposes, but he’s struck with the realization that tonight feels something a whole lot like sacred, where their drunken grabbing and tearing at each other in the church simply didn’t. Every quiet susurration—in either language—from Vasquez is like a prayer. Faraday closes his eyes, sighs, revels in every holy touch of his hands. It’s a hell of a divine thing to feel when Vasquez lowers himself down, pressing on top of Faraday, cocks nestled alongside one another.

Vasquez’s lips are just below Faraday’s ear the first time he pushes forward. The feel of his hips is amazing but it’s the soft, relenting groan it pulls from Vasquez, pressed hard against Faraday’s neck, that sends such a powerful bolt of want through him.

Faraday pulls him tight against his chest, hands splayed possessively on Vasquez’s back. “Damn,” he mutters. “Keep that up.” It’s a simple request, but it makes him feel bold all the same. Though he’d like to push himself a bit further. He’d like to ask outright for something, some hot touch of Vasquez’s hands, or his _mouth._

Vasquez hums against his neck, the sound almost like laughter, warm and pleased. “Feels good, _güero?”_ he asks.

Faraday pushes one hand up to grab at Vasquez’s hair, the other wandering slowly down along his spine. “Feels real good,” he answers, trying to gentle himself as his curls his fingers, grabbing at Vasquez’s skin, his scalp. He swallows, tilts his head back, lets Vasquez kiss hungrily down his throat to his collarbone. “You,” he says, and swallows again. _”You_ feel good,” he forces out, breath catching.

Vasquez sighs against his skin, runs coarse and too-patient hands along Faraday’s sides. _”Tranquilo,”_ he says, low and soft and altogether too sweet for Faraday to be able to stand it much longer, this slow and tender way that Vasquez is treating him, making his heart feel heavy with the suspicious weight of meaning.

Faraday groans, slides his hand farther down to Vasquez’s ass and gets a good grip on it, grabbing and pulling at him and urging him forward more quickly. That gentle tone in Vasquez’s voice gives way to something a hair more breathless. It’s ragged, a little wilder. It goes right to Faraday’s head, the thought that this long and lean vaquero, this wanted man, cool and deadly under the most dire circumstances, seems to weaken under Faraday’s touch. That familiar fire seems to catch between them again, glowing and building as Faraday coaxes him forward, squeezing his ass, feeling Vasquez go slack in his arms here and there, broken little sounds escaping him as their pace quickens.

There’s a warm, slick mess leaking on Faraday’s belly, and the way Vasquez is groaning, the way he’s _moving,_ Faraday’s certain he’s not the only one to blame for it. His hands are sticking to Vasquez’s skin, both of them breaking out in a sweat. It’s hotter than it was in the church. Hotter, and _brighter,_ the lamplight that Faraday normally wouldn’t peg as all that strong paints the room in a sweet orange hue, shadows flitting back and forth with the flicker of the flame.

As much as he likes the feel of Vasquez pressed so close against him, he wants to take advantage of that lamplight and get a proper look at what’s going on between them. His pulse is racing, and that’s partly still thanks to his nerves, but it feels more and more that his want is taking precedence, that dim voice in his head saying _you’re as good as dead_ just loud enough to hear over the blood rushing in his ears and Vasquez’s grunting to get him to push for what he wants.

He grabs Vasquez by the hair, pulling too roughly, he knows. Vasquez hisses, and Faraday cuts the sound off with a kiss that he hopes reads stronger than it does desperate. Vasquez is all too willing to match his heat, taking Faraday’s bottom lip between his teeth and sucking on it mercilessly, not stopping until Faraday makes what’s surely the loudest sound they’ve let up between the two of them. Some undignified yelp of pain that’s in no part protest.

“God damn it,” Faraday mutters before looking up to see Vasquez offering a dark grin. “Just, lemme—” Faraday starts, glancing down between them as much as he can. Vasquez must understand, because he pushes himself up so his chest’s about as far away as it can get without having to move his hips, which he gives a little roll forward for good measure.

Good lord. Faraday sighs at the sight, Vasquez’s cock sliding beside his own, foreskin peeling back just slightly, leaving Faraday’s skin wet. “This what you wanted, _güero?”_ Vasquez asks, rolls forward again. “To see?”

Faraday nods before he answers. He doesn’t look up at Vasquez yet, just stares, entranced, reaches down to run his fingertips up the length of Vasquez’s cock as best he can. “Yeah,” he answers eventually, voice catching, throat tight so that it comes out a whisper. Vasquez shivers at Faraday’s touch, hums deep in his throat, and Faraday looks up at him, heart wrenching fiercely at how impossibly _beautiful_ he looks. His mouth is so _red,_ lips parted, and Faraday reaches up and slips his thumb between them.

Vasquez’s brows raise at first, then knit together, eyes going round and pained like he can hardly stand that Faraday did it. Then he’s closing his mouth, and moaning wet and greedy around Faraday’s thumb, and his mouth is so _warm_ and soft, and Faraday’s suddenly aching to feel it on every damn inch of him. And he’s worked up enough to tell Vasquez so.

“Want this mouth again,” he says, hooking the tip of his thumb behind Vasquez’s bottom teeth and prying his jaw open a bit. Vasquez blinks at him, fights a little against Faraday’s grip on his face. “You weren’t messin’ around last night,” he goes on, while Vasquez can’t quip back, “and I didn’t figure I’d get another go at you.” There’s a smile in Vasquez’s eyes at that. He runs his tongue enticingly over the pad of Faraday’s thumb and Faraday rolls his hips up. “Wasn’t easy today, tryin’ not to think about it. And you didn’t do me any favors down on the porch with that cigar.”

Vasquez hums out a sweet little laugh, pulls like he wants to start moving down Faraday’s body, so Faraday lets go of his jaw. Vasquez presses a kiss to Faraday’s throat. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, _güero,”_ he says, doing a terrible job of playing dumb. “That was a very serious conversation.” He kisses Faraday’s collarbone, then his sternum. “Sam had an important question,” he says softly against Faraday’s ribs. “About staying or going,” he kisses across Faraday’s belly. “Living or dying."

God damn him for saying it all hot and slow against his skin like that. “That’s just it, ain’t it?” Faraday says, before a sharp breath rushes out of him at the feel of Vasquez’s fingertips light on his hip bone. “We’re out there talkin’ about livin’ and dyin’, and I oughta be thinkin’ about how it’s my last damn night on Earth, and then there’s you suckin’ on that cigar, and all I can fuckin’ think about is gettin’ my hands back on you.”

It’s a hell of a lot more than Faraday’s gotten himself to say to Vasquez since before this all started. It comes out of him fast and honest and it isn’t ‘til he’s said it all that he notices Vasquez has stopped kissing him. He glances down and Vasquez is staring up at him with a look in his eyes that’s too sincere—or maybe perfectly sincere, really, with what Faraday just admitted.

They don’t say anything for a minute, but Vasquez is stroking along Faraday’s hip again, and runs his other hand up Faraday’s chest. “For me,” he says, eventually, “it made perfect sense. They go together,” he goes on, speaking carefully, thoughtfully, “not knowing what happens tomorrow,” he kisses beside Faraday’s navel, “and knowing I want you tonight.”

It makes something break inside Faraday, warm and painful in his chest. Vasquez makes such simple words into something that feels so Earth-shattering.

“So go ahead,” Vasquez says, then, hardly taking the time to bring his lips away from Faraday’s skin. “Get your hands back on me.”

Faraday takes a shaky breath and pushes his fingers into Vasquez’s hair, and strokes at his beard, and angles his face enough so he can get a good, long look at it before Vasquez presses his lips against Faraday’s palm and eases a little farther down the bed. He settles himself between Faraday’s knees, face lingering inches above his cock, and runs strong, calloused hands up and down Faraday’s thighs. He whispers dark and low and encouraging, saying _qué bueno_ and _querido_ and _te quiero,_ so many pretty words, pouring out in hot breath against Faraday’s skin with little brushes of Vasquez’s lips against the crease of his groin until Faraday’s shivering beneath him, biting down on his lip, one hand grabbing tight at the sheets to keep his other one from pulling too hard at Vasquez’s hair.

It’s a rare thing, even setting aside the fact that he’s beneath another man, for Faraday to feel so laid bare, so honest, so sober. And he really can’t remember the last time he’s ever used the word, but then it’s coming out of him, quiet and without warning, though he can’t stand to look at Vasquez when he says it. “Please.”

Vasquez’s fingers grip hard on his thighs, he moans low in his throat, and then he licks a long stripe up Faraday’s cock. Faraday sighs, tilts his head back, rubs circles against Vasquez’s scalp, and Vasquez hums as he wraps his mouth around him and swallows him down, slow, awfully slow. His hips keep canting gently upward until Vasquez pins them down, doing a better job of keeping quiet than Faraday is, though he might have a slight advantage with his mouth full.

He isn’t exactly sure how loud the sounds coming out of him are, the little gasps and wet breaths and moans low in his throat that he keeps cutting short. All the while Vasquez is sucking him slow, and deep, and _thorough_ in a way that’s either terribly different from last night, or that Faraday wasn’t able to appreciate at the time.

But in a warm room, with a clear head, lying on a soft bed, he lets his hand rest on Vasquez’s hair, rising and falling with the motions of his head as it bobs in his lap, warm little exhalations fogging against his shaft, his belly. Without the whiskey to dull his senses, he knows he won’t last too long, though that thought—the thought of finishing soon—doesn’t trouble him the way it did last night. He’s certain he’ll be willing to try to take care of Vasquez even after he’s done, try his hand at finishing him off properly this time. Hell, he might even have it in him to take another tumble in a short while, if Vasquez will let him stay, if he doesn’t mind losing a bit more sleep, doesn’t mind using up a bit more of the little time they’ve got left.

God, that thought is suddenly unbearable, pushing some quiet, morose lamentation through his lips, which Vasquez must mistake for impatience, or arousal, because he groans around Faraday’s cock, picks up his pace a little, takes him deeper. Faraday keeps breathing his name out in a whisper, tries to drive the desolate, grievous thoughts from his mind. Every so often, he manages to look down at Vasquez in the same moment that Vasquez is looking back up at him, and each time it makes his heart ache and his hips twitch and he finds it more and more difficult not to utter soft words of praise and gratitude, and he wonders how long it’ll take for him to say something truly damning.

It all just seems to fuel Vasquez that much more, making him hungrier, back arching, hips winding as he takes Faraday all the way into his throat, humming obscenely, and keeps him there, just the way it was when Faraday held him in place last night, but entirely of his own accord.

Faraday scratches at Vasquez’s scalp, brings his free hand up to pull at his own hair, then the pillow, then grabbing hold of the headboard behind him as he bends his knees and plants his feet flat on the mattress, legs falling open wider.

Vasquez rubs his hands greedily over Faraday’s thighs, pulls back to take a deep breath, then swallows him again all at once. Faraday takes his hand from Vasquez’s hair and claps it over his own mouth in time to stifle the high whine it pulls out of him.

Vasquez pulls off, gasping, gives Faraday a few long licks before taking him in hand and catching his breath. “How do you want me to finish you, _güero?”_

Faraday swallows hard, eyes Vasquez up and down, mind racing with so many ways he’d like to answer that question. Things he can’t ask for, not tonight, and again the thought that there’ll be no next time hurts. Vasquez must see it written on his face, because he offers some pained expression in response, and he can’t possibly know just what Faraday’s thinking, but all the same there’s an understanding of some kind between them now, and Vasquez crawls up to him, kisses just beside his mouth, says, _“No te preocupes. Quédate conmigo ahora.”_

Faraday nods, rocks into his grip. “Your mouth,” he answers before kissing him, sliding his tongue into his mouth and taking his face in his hands.

Vasquez hums a soft laugh, takes the moments he can in between Faraday’s sudden, intense affections to say, “You sure?”

Faraday smiles, and it goes like that for a minute, the two of them grinning and kissing, the world suddenly warm again. "I’m sure,” Faraday tells him, finally, and Vasquez makes his way back down and takes his time, still stroking Faraday with his hand, kissing along the crease of his groin, surprising him when he takes his balls gently in his other hand, licking underneath them. “Jesus,” Faraday hisses, jolting instinctively.

“Sorry,” Vasquez breathes darkly, rubbing a thumb across the spot he’d just licked, tantalizingly close to Faraday’s hole, and Faraday’s whole body seems to light up in response to it, and he’s plain _cross._ Cross that he wants it, cross that he won’t let himself have it. Vasquez looks up at him with that searching gaze, and Faraday’s face is hot, and he’s certain there’s a world of want written plainly across it. “Another time,” Vasquez murmurs, turning his attention back to Faraday’s cock with a relenting sort of sigh.

Seemingly impatient, he swallows him down again, nothing slow or teasing about it, hips rocking like he’s fit to burst.

The time they took to speak brought Faraday back under his own control for a while, but Vasquez seems determined to push him right back to the edge. Faraday’s trying to quiet himself, quell the whimpers of _lord_ and _damn it_ and _Vas._ Why did Vasquez have to go and say that? Why torture him with such a hollow promise, why make him so desperate for something he’ll never get to have? It makes him resentful of his traitorous body, the way his hips jerk and his toes curl as Vasquez keeps his thighs spread wide and takes him deep. “Jesus,” Faraday says, warning, unable to hold out any longer. “I’m—” He looks down frantically. “Vas, you’re gonna make me—”

Vasquez hums, digs his fingers into Faraday’s thighs, glares up to meet his stare. Faraday’s jaw drops at the sight, Vasquez’s eyes dark and encouraging as he hollows his cheeks. He wishes he could keep looking, but he throws his head back as he spends down Vasquez’s throat. It’s a miracle he stays quiet, though that probably has something to do with the barely being able to breathe.

Vasquez sucks him all through it with a fervor that won’t let Faraday forget this affair’s only half done, so that even as he manages to finally exhale, and his muscles begin to relax, the urgency between them, that heat filling the room never actually recedes. In fact, Vasquez is still laving at him so enthusiastically when he’s finished that Faraday damn near has to wrench him off his cock with a firm hand.

“God damn,” he’s swearing as Vasquez heaves panting breaths, mouth red and swollen, eyes watering, looking lean and hungry and animal in that way Faraday can’t resist as he makes to crawl up his body. To Faraday’s dismay, he wraps his hand around his own cock, and then he’s got his tongue in Faraday’s mouth before he can beg him not to.

He’d get to that more quickly, more insistently, if he wasn’t so distracted by the taste of himself on Vasquez’s tongue, the way it seems to him a more striking evidence of Vasquez’s want than any of his actions.

He lets Vasquez kiss him. He savors the taste. Vasquez hovers over him, weight distributed between his knees and a hand beside Faraday’s head, the other still stroking himself while Faraday works up the strength to breathe halfway properly and push Vasquez up with one hand flat against his chest, swatting at Vasquez’s hand with the other.

“Quit that, would you?” he gasps out, and in the time between Vasquez letting go and Faraday wrapping his hand around him, Vasquez whines soft and devastating and ruts his hips forward helplessly into the empty air between them. “Lemme,” Faraday mutters, getting hold of him and looking up to study every reaction in Vasquez’s face, every shift in his expression, however minute. It’s captivating, impossible to look away as Vasquez’s eyes squint shut and snap back open, brows furrowed in something an awful lot like pain, though Faraday knows better, because it’s all spliced with little breaths of relief and little sweeps of his tongue over his lips and Faraday finds himself chanting, “Got you. I got you.”

It goes on like that, Faraday stroking him long and experimental, tight and then loose, quick and then slow, rubbing his thumb through the wet mess at the head of Vasquez’s cock, murmuring soft, sweet nonsense to him, all while Vasquez nods and drops his head down to drag desperate, indecisive lips over Faraday’s jaw, his neck, pulls back again to stare disbelievingly at him, mouth always looking like it’s about to say something, but never quite managing to, which is so maddening that Faraday makes himself ask outright, “How’s it feel?” Vasquez moans, nodding more. “‘S it good, Vas?”

Vasquez shuts his eyes, drops his forehead to the pillow, breathes hard against Faraday’s ear. “Good,” he answers, barely a whisper but still deafening from so close. “Keep going,” he goes on, and Faraday nods, runs his free hand over Vasquez’s back. “Don’t stop—” He seems to cut himself short, swallows before trying again. “Don’t stop, Faraday.”

Faraday hums at the sound of his name, the _feel_ of it hot beside his ear. “I won’t,” he promises, pushes his hand down to grab at Vasquez’s ass.

Faraday knows they’re working together. He can feel the thrust of Vasquez’s hips up into his grip, Vasquez chasing for it just as much as Faraday’s trying to give it to him. Still, he feels awfully in control, feels an awful lot like Vasquez is at his mercy, and it’s a heady, drunk feeling, his body loose and warm, Vasquez squirming faster and faster over top of him.

He grips harder, pulls faster, hardly hears himself as he whimpers gentle encouragements that _it’s alright_ and _that’s good_ and _go on, go ahead,_ and more than anything else, it keeps coming back around to _I got you._ He finds that sentiment in particular isn’t satisfied going unsaid, because it feels so true and real and glorified in this moment. In this _one_ moment, Faraday’s got him, even if he never will again.

Vasquez gives no warning, no coherent words to offer, but there’s a stutter in his rhythm and his hand comes up to grip hard at Faraday’s shoulder and he turns his face toward Faraday and catches his earlobe between his teeth, so that the moan he makes seems to vibrate through Faraday’s very bones, goosebumps prickling over his sweaty, flushed skin as he feels Vasquez’s spend land hot on his belly. He’s so high on it all that he finds himself still offering quiet praise— _that’s right_ and _so good_ and _perfect, just perfect_ —already having forfeited all of himself, and his pride, and his fear, unwilling to fight any soft, gentle instinct that presents itself. He’s determined to keep the warmth between them stoked, until sleep or dawn pries Vasquez from his arms, whichever comes first.

Vasquez collapses on top of him, finally, his mouth still pressed against Faraday’s ear, catching his breath, body still rocking a bit, that smooth current flowing through him not yet having quite petered out, his muscles tensing and relaxing in turn like the energy they just expended is coursing down his spine in weakening bursts. His hands roam Faraday’s sides again, slower, grateful, lips murmuring something low in Spanish. Faraday’s hand is caught between them, and a mess besides, otherwise he’d be running it over Vasquez’s body along with his other, which is indecisive and overzealous, darting up to pet the back of Vasquez’s head, rushing down to squeeze his ass again, sliding over his spine and carefully considering every bump and notch.

They lie there, sweaty and sticky, and there occurs to Faraday no need or urge whatsoever to proceed hastily from here, not like last night when he’d fled so resolutely. It’s been a long, long time since Faraday felt so at ease, so wrapped in comfort, so inclined toward gentleness. He wonders whether he’s been purposefully outrunning it his whole life—though it never seemed such a sure and real prospect before now. He’s certain, at the very least, that he doesn’t want to outrun this, however little of his life is left.

Vasquez eventually settles. Their breathing evens out, sweat beginning to make them shiver. Vasquez pushes himself up with a rueful sort of sigh. He gives Faraday an appraising look, something in his eyes that’s a little nervous behind the overlying satisfaction.

He licks his lips and walks over to the wash basin, wets a rag and wipes his torso clean. Faraday watches him for a while, then takes a look down at himself, belly and hand covered in spend. He hears Vasquez hum a low laugh and say, “Not so easy to run out this time.”

Faraday’s face heats a bit. It’s a joke, but it feels suspiciously like an accusation as well. “Don’t intend to,” he answers simply. It earns a bright kind of smirk from Vasquez, even if he’s trying to hide it as he rinses the rag and gives himself a once-over. “That a problem?” Faraday asks, warm.

Vasquez shakes his head casually, brings the rag over to Faraday, who reaches out to take it from him, but Vasquez doesn’t offer it outright. Instead, he sits at the edge of the bed beside him. “No,” he answers, and starts cleaning Faraday up, laughing when he hisses at the cold. “I’m in no big hurry,” he goes on, wiping gently at Faraday’s skin. “Leave when you want,” he says, and reaches out for Faraday’s hand. Faraday gives it to him, and Vasquez takes his time wiping gently at each of his fingers.

Faraday swallows. “And what if I said I didn’t want to,” he says, staring at their hands. “To leave, I mean.” He swallows again and looks up to find Vasquez watching his face carefully. “That a problem?”

The corner of Vasquez’s mouth quirks up. “You mean staying?” he asks needlessly. Faraday rubs a hand over his thigh and nods. “No, _güero,”_ Vasquez tells him. “Not a problem.”

Faraday smiles, warmth flooding his chest, his new fate for the night setting a relief over him he feels in his bones. Vasquez gives him another sweep with the rag and Faraday swears at himself for the dumb grin he can’t keep off his face as he watches Vasquez get up and put it back by the basin.

Faraday gets under the bedcovers and makes himself comfortable, and when Vasquez joins him, settling in close against him, it feels nearly as intimate as what they just got up to. “Should turn the lamp off,” Vasquez mutters, not making any move toward actually doing it, only cozying up to Faraday more.

Faraday looks down over him fondly, trails his fingertips over his shoulders, his arms, pushes them through his hair. “Not yet,” he says.

He can feel Vasquez smile against his chest. “Should get some sleep,” he offers, running his hand over Faraday’s hip.

“Not yet,” Faraday answers, though it’s already a bit tough trying to fight it. The night’s soft and warm, his body spent and heavy. He wants so desperately to keep his eyes open, but they keep flitting shut. He won’t forgive himself if he falls asleep, not yet. Not so soon. Not when this is all they’ve got. He tries to think of something to say. Maybe he can keep himself awake longer if they’re talking. “I wish you wouldn’t’ve said that,” is what comes out.

“Said what?” Vasquez asks, voice low, barely curious, fingertips still playing around Faraday’s thigh.

“Wish you wouldn’t’ve said all that about ‘another time,’” he answers, though he thinks he should have the sense not to. “When you…” he can’t quite say it. “God, I wish you wouldn’t’ve done that.”

Vasquez shifts purposefully out of his arms, and Faraday opens his eyes. “Why not?” he asks, eyes searching, probing. He tilts his head, smiles a little. “Seemed to me you liked it.”

Faraday clenches his jaw, shifts a bit where he lies because Vasquez is right. “I know you ain’t stupid,” he says. “You know there’s an army headin’ right for us.”

Vasquez nods. “That’s why we spent the week setting traps,” he offers, trails a finger along Faraday’s ribs. Faraday isn’t sure how it’s so easy to stay calm. “Why we brought back the dynamite,” he goes on, presses a kiss to Faraday’s shoulder, “dug trenches. Taught men to shoot.”

Faraday sighs. “It’s an _army,”_ he says again.

Vasquez leans back and frowns. “You are so sure we are going to die tomorrow,” he says plainly. Faraday nods. “Very relaxed, for someone so sure of that.”

Faraday rolls his eyes. “You had a little something to do with that,” he points out. Vasquez smirks a little. “I ain’t afraid of dyin’.”

Vasquez shakes his head. “Of course you aren’t,” he says, disbelievingly. _“Tienes miedo de algo.”_

Faraday wrinkles his nose at the way Vasquez slips into Spanish again. It strikes him as unfair, when Faraday’s found himself subject to a bout of honesty. He doesn’t let himself ask what Vasquez means. “Why,” he asks instead, “are you?”

Vasquez shrugs, leans down, kisses Faraday’s jaw. “Doesn’t matter,” he says softly. “I’m dead already.” Not for the first time since they met, Faraday reminds himself that Vasquez has spent who knows how many months alone, on the run, dodging death that could have come in so many ways. Maybe it’s why he was so keen to stay. Dying in some righteous battle is a mite cleaner than starving to death, or a bounty hunter’s bullet, or a noose. “But I’m not planning to die tomorrow,” he says against the scruff of Faraday’s cheek. “I hope you aren’t either.”

“Ain’t a matter of plannin’ to,” Faraday says, “it’s—” but Vasquez cuts him off with a kiss.

“Because there are things I would still like to do to you,” Vasquez breathes heavy against Faraday’s mouth, rubs a hand up high between his thighs. Faraday brings his hands up to cup his face, to keep him close, nips at his lower lip. “Things I would ask from you, maybe.”

Faraday doesn’t ask what he means. It isn’t worth it to ask, to know. To think about it. He just nods, rubs his thumbs over Vasquez’s cheekbones, humming, kissing.

“You falling asleep?” Vasquez asks, and Faraday snaps his eyes open.

“Don’t wanna,” he answers. “Want this,” he says, eyes already drooping shut.

Vasquez strokes his hair, and it’s maddeningly soothing, making sleep close in on him all the more quickly. “Sleep,” he says. _“Lo necesitas. Yo también.”_ Vasquez stretches an arm far out to turn down the lamp. Faraday keeps him from falling out of the bed. “Sleep,” he says again, curling back against him.

Faraday sighs, lets Vasquez settle against his chest. “Don’t wanna,” he says again, soft and petulant. He rubs his fingertips into Vasquez’s scalp, yawns. “I’d give ‘em,” he says.

Vasquez yawns against his skin. “Give what?” he asks, voice thick.

Clouds of sleep are moving in behind Faraday’s eyes. He holds Vasquez tighter. “The things you’d ask for.”

He distantly registers the feel of Vasquez’s eyelashes blinking against him. “You don’t know what they are.”

Faraday turns his head, mouth and nose in Vasquez’s hair, breathing him in. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “I’d give ‘em.”

Lips press to his chest. “Don’t do anything stupid, tomorrow, _güero.”_

It’s the last thing he hears before he falls asleep.


End file.
